Nip o’Bells cup hope

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32707, 9 September 1971, Page 8

Nip o’Bells cup hope

The Christchurch bloodstock agent, Mr D. B. Clarkson, gave the Adelaide trainer, J. B. Cummings, fair warning that New Zealand was not sending over a “picture” horse when he completed the sale of the Amberley-owned Nip o’Bells last spring.

But handsome is as handsome does. Nip o’Bells is developing the brand of form that might make him the Cummings stable’s top claimant for Melbourne Cup honours this year.

Nip o’Bells raised stable hopes with a second win in the Patrobas Welter at Caulfield last Saturday. The Cummings-trained Galilee also won the race in 1966 before carrying off the CaulfieldMelbourne cups double. In the last few weeks the Cummings stable has lost Voleur, Sanderae, Gay Poss, Laelia, and King Medes from the active list of cup hopefuls. Ail have gone amiss and Gay Poss and Sanderae have been sent back to New Zealand.

Nip o’Bells is no Galiliee but early in his three-year-old racing he was shaping as if he would be very useful over a bit of ground. He was sold to Mr Ron Dabscheck soon after he ran

third in the 1970 New Zealand Derby. ' Mr Dabscheck, principal shareholder in the syndicate which introduced racing to Indonesia at Jakarta last week, also bought a share in Every Post about a fortnight earlier. Any patriotic South Islander at Caulfield last Saturday could hardly have failed to make at least two successful wagers. Less than an hour before Nip o’Bells won the Patrobas Welter his .contemorary, Lincoln’s Inn, gave 12 others a sound beating over a mile and a quarter in the Heatherlie Handicap.

Lincoln’s Inn was developed and trained at Riccarton by J. C. Tomkinson until he was sold at auction for $ll,OOO at Trentham last January. He is now owned by Mr Noel Jones, of Sydney, and is trained in Melbourne by George Hanlon. After his win last Saturday Lincoln’s Inn was described by the Melbourne correspondent of the Sydney “Sun-Herald” as “the sensation horse of Victoria and possibly Australian racing.” Nip o’Bells and Lincoln’s Inn met once in Canterbury last spring. In the Geraldine Racing Club’s Wainui Highweight on October 17. Nip o’Bells won easily in the hands of G. Jackson. Lincoln’s Inn ran himself out pacemaking and finished eighth in a field of 10.